


(I am at) fault lines

by mythomagicallydelicious



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Affection, Alcohol, Angst, Bonds, Cruel fate, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, IPRE Crew - Freeform, JohnChurch - Freeform, Kisses, M/M, Minor Blood Mention, Post-Canon, Rated T for swearing, Seven Birds - Freeform, Soul Bond, Starblaster crew - Freeform, ascendant (the adventure zone), but talked about in detail, canon level swear words though, does this count as a dtr talk?, everyone except john and merle are just mentioned, hand holding, hurt/comfort kinda, implied/referenced ignoring of boundaries, in the less fun way, istus at work, john the hunger and the starblaster crew, key-lime gogurt, merle's canon tree parts and number of eyes, no but it's close enough for now, so i tagged them sorry, they talk about deaths too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:48:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24296881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythomagicallydelicious/pseuds/mythomagicallydelicious
Summary: John has more than a hundred years worth of guilt weighing him down, but something during those one hundred years challenged the way he viewed how he thought about himself after the fact. Reminders of where he feels most at fault for breaking boundaries and becoming something Other than he was brings him to a breaking point post-canon, and he needs to get it off his chest before it caves him in.
Relationships: Merle Highchurch & The Hunger | John, Merle Highchurch/The Hunger | John
Comments: 3
Kudos: 40





	(I am at) fault lines

**Author's Note:**

> In essence, John thinks a lot and confesses a bit more to his only... friend? Or is Merle more than that?

John stares at the framed photo, taking up space among Kenny Chesney albums and old fantasy Costco receipts. Merle’s in the kitchen making his gods-awful tea, so John feels he has the moment to indulge himself in looking at the picture.

It’s the Starblaster Crew. The seven as they were at the height of their family. One twin hanging over Barry Bluejean’s shoulder, the other clinging to Magnus’ bicep as he lifts them up for the picture. Lucretia holds a disproportionately large bowl in her hands inexplicably, one eyebrow raised at the camera and a small grin, a pencil tucked behind her ear. The captain stands tall and proud, a twinkle in his eye, a quirk to his lips betraying his fondness for those surrounding him.

Merle is on a step stool, reaching up to Magnus’ other bicep, apparently mid-jump to latch onto the arm raised in the air like a champion. It is funny and family and so unfamiliar and far away, John can’t help but stare when he gets a chance.

Lucretia is still young, Magnus’ scar and blackened eye evident. Details of their yearly reformation beneath regulation cloaks or jackets. Or in the twins’ cases, cloaks _and_ jackets.

Every member is smiling, even as Barry seems mid-glasses adjustment, a blush caught spreading across his face forever in a moment.

The longer he stares the more he can feel their personalities becoming real to him.

And in a darker way, he can remember absorbing every single one into the folds of the Hunger for a few short moments. How he sought out those of the crew, to learn to trick or capture or outmaneuver them in the future. To understand.

He remembers the few precious moments between parlay with Merle, watching the dark fire he conjured destroy his chance to be a mouthpiece for another year, and reforming back within the void of Ascendant, sending down scouts and searchers for the Light of Creation. Sending more strands of its essence down to overcome each world. To consume and grow, to learn and become _more_. To break destiny and fate apart at the seams and go beyond to fulfill their purpose of re-defining the meaning of _purpose._

Of sending messengers and warriors down to fight back the resistant elements of each plane. A welcome party unafraid of completing its mission, because it had no tangible idea of fear from which to draw from anymore.

And among all that, John remembers a spark of awareness to look out for the ship he’d had described to him. To look out for the frustratingly familiar signals the Starblaster crew’s lives sent up like flares when Ascendant finally came down on each world.

John remembers a similar tense few minutes at the end of many “cycles” as he’d later learned Merle had called them. Minutes where in the midst of conquering another plane and adding to their number, their mass, their beauty, where John would have an original train of thought, to seek out a member of the Starblaster captured in Ascendant’s tendrils. To explore the new member among billions of others.

John has scraps of memories from a billion, billion lives that were never his. He has scenes of heartbreak and love and sadness and anger and song and sorrow from so many from so many worlds. Just glimpses and fragments of lives and memories from too many beings to count. From planes that haven’t existed in a thousand years. Sometimes it’s all John can do to keep from cracking apart, under the weight of so much stolen knowledge. So many stolen lives. All because of _him._ All because of a search to end his dissatisfaction.

John tentatively puts one hand out to touch the edge of the frame. John had spent almost a hundred years searching for seven specific lives within the folds of Ascendant. Of purposely enveloping the clever friends of Merle, his opponent in the verbal battlefield in a private war they waged far away from the eyes of Ascendant or the opinions of the crew.

John remembers the brief moments of contact he’d made with each of them over that time, as they died defending a hopeless plane. Or doing as much damage as possible, running distractions, interference, while the rest of the crew escaped with the Light. He doesn’t remember them in the beginning. Not until he meets with Merle does he start anticipating encountering them via Ascendant.

There was a pattern to how Ascendant came to each planar system. They cut one off from the other, diminishing the powers of all, snapping the invisible bonds between planes and people, absorbing the power and inverting it to garner the strength to go to the next planar set until they’d finally ascend for the final time.

The astral planes were easy to conquer. The souls never particularly fought back, and it gathered up easy forces to strengthen them as they hungrily devoured the next plane until going to the prime material plane last of all.

John remembers first meeting one of Merle’s crew mates through the astral plane. He was seeking out the signatures their souls clearly threw out, marking them as different from the rest of the unimaginative worlds they’d gone through over time.

John remembers the taste of jell-o on his tongue, overwhelming senses he forgot he still possessed, except when he was in parlay. For a moment John had blinked, realizing he had eyes, and in that space of reaching for the flaring soul, they'd connected. The soul became an extension of his own. He raised an arm and dark fire appeared in their palm. Flashes of memories tore through them, shared, now, from the soul that Ascendant welcomed to its folds. The sum of knowledge Ascendant held grew infinitesimally each time they went to a new system. John was just experiencing a more intimate version of that sharing of knowledge than he’d experienced before.

A flash of fire caught in John’s mind’s eye as he remembered. His eyes traced the elf hanging from Magnus’ left. Her smile bright and John hears an obnoxious and carefree laugh in his mind. A spark of the first flame she’d ever produced over a hundred years before this picture was taken. A smile from an elf with a face fuzzed over beside her, a slight gap between teeth and an arm slung around her—their—Lup’s shoulders. Warmth grew and flickered over their face. That day, John had blinked, and shot the fire from their hands deeper into the astral sea. He felt the delight in casting in Lup’s soul and the fierceness with which she wished to return to her brother’s side.

The taste of jello-o overcame all of his senses again, the smell of green jell-o filling his nose, jell-o filling his vision and stomach and then- and then-

And then the temporary bond was broken. Strings snapped and frayed as Lup’s soul disappeared in a bright flash. Fate mocking John as she stole the crew away from them again.

Ascendant hovered over the jell-o world that had killed Lup as the Starblaster disappeared entirely from sight. Ascendant opened thousands of eyes and concentrated, John falling back into the familiar embrace of the void, his resolve not shaken in the slightest. It was time to focus on gearing up to travel to the next planar system. John could feel how close they were. He could almost _taste_ it. He banished the sense memory of jell-o from his mind, and the resolve of a million billion others bolstered Ascendant as it searched for where the Light of Creation would fall to next.

\- - -

The John of the present felt a tremble run through his hands as his mind came back to himself. Distantly he heard a clattering from the kitchen and a few choice words spill through the open way back to where he sat. He snatched his hand away from the frame, turning and sitting straight-backed on the couch, away from any line of sight to the picture he’d been studying.

“Okay, tea’s ready! Incoming,” Merle called as he walked in with a kettle with steam still coming off the top and a couple of wine glasses in his other hand. “Careful, it’s kind of hot still. But according to Taako, it’s better when your tongue is too burnt to actually taste any of it. Ungrateful punk,” Merle scoffed, a small fond grin on his face as he hopped onto the other end of the couch and set the wine glasses down.

Merle did the honors of pouring a steaming cup for the both of them. Then cursed profusely once more as he tried to pick his glass up immediately.

“What did you expect? You put a steaming hot liquid into glass, Merle,” John says, glancing over at his… glancing over at him.

“I dunno, I didn’t think that far ahead! Shit, that’s hot,” Merle complained, shaking his hand out. “Ah shoot, that’s gonna blister for sure.” Merle pouted looking at his red fingers. Then looked up at John with a glint in his eye.

“Kiss it better?” he asked in a false-cutesy voice, offering an open palm to John.

John jerked his head to the side in surprise. “Merle, you’re a cleric,” he sputters, eyes darting between Merle’s hand and face.

Merle let out a hard laugh. “That’s what I’ve been told, but why ask Pan for this one when _you’re_ right here to tease, Johnny boy?” Merle laughs again, slapping his knee with his supposedly injured hand, not seeming to care at the sting of it.

John pursed his lips, not giving in to the temptation to give a rebuttal or worse, join in with the laughter. Instead, he takes a handkerchief from his pocket and uses it to pick up the wine glass by the stem, just in case. He blows over the top of the tea, cooling it before taking a dignified sip.

The first drops indeed burned his tongue, but he barely winced before knocking his drink back again, taking a longer draw from Merle’s shitty tea.

It took everything within him not to spit it back out immediately as the flavor finally hit him as he drank. He set his glass down a bit too heavily, pushing himself away from the coffee table onto the arm of the couch.

“Merle, what is _in_ that?” John asks.

Merle cracks up again at John’s over the top reaction and wipes a fake tear of mirth off his face as he settles down.

“What? I’ve got about a dozen recipes for tea. I dunno which one that was, I just grabbed some water to steep it in and hoped for the best.”

“That is a terrible system for making tea,” John manages, bringing the hankie up to his mouth and scratching some of the flavor off his tongue with it.

“Well, no need to be rude. How bad could it be, huh?” Merle grumbles as he turns and grabs the wine glass by the stem as well, taking a knock of his own concoction down in a few gulps.

“Whew, you weren’t kidding, John,” Merle admits, smacking his lips together. “It’s like key-lime jello or some shit. This might have been the cursed batch of tea I meant to gift to Taako, _blegh_ ,” Merle made a retching noise in the back of his throat and set his glass down.

Merle studies the tea kettle for a moment before shrugging. “Eh, I’ll invite him later for iced tea and watch him react then. It’ll be classic. I’ll try and snap a picture of his face—Pan knows how much of a riot this’ll cause.” Merle grins and takes the kettle back to the kitchen, not noticing the distress John tries to keep buried from his face.

It’s harder, these days, John thinks. To hide his emotions. After spending countless years as a book locked shut, now his face practically screamed what was happening within his mind. The fractured scars that covered his face in neon and inky blackness still remained. Stress lines stacked his forehead and became exaggerated at the corners of his eyes. It was tiring to maintain a neutral expression, these days. So he didn’t try. He chewed his lip or looked away to avoid the knowing glances he could expect from Merle. Sometimes he was still caught off guard by how insightful the old dwarf was.

Other times he wished he could run away and never have to think or be seen again. But that wasn’t fair.

Merle returned with a bottle of alcohol, setting it on the table and sitting on the cushion directly beside John, this time, instead of the far end. His body was turned and his hand was propping his head up, elbow resting on the back of the couch as Merle looked over him critically.

“Have a drink, John. No more tries at tea, cleric’s honor,” Merle says, his tree arm up and two fingers forming a salute before dropping back to the couch between them.

John swallows, looking away from Merle. He can’t keep his eyes in any one location until it rests on the bottle brought in. He sighs, leaning towards it, the cork already removed. No more glasses were brought out. John takes a swig straight from the bottle, relishing the way it burned his throat. And more importantly, burned away the trace of key-lime jell-o from his mouth.

A memory flashed through his mind as he closed his eyes and drank from the bottle Merle provided for him. A sticky wooden bar top, a crowded room, hollering, the sound of a pen scribbling and a glass shattered nearby. A roar as shot glasses were raised and slammed back to the bar. The memory slides away as quick as it came, back into the ether of John’s mind. The place were a million displaced memories lived and waited to be brought to the forefront for three glorious seconds before fading away.

“We don’t have to talk today, John. We don’t have to talk ever, I guess. We can just go on with the rest of our lives and never talk out all the shit clearly eating you from the inside out. But I don’t like carrying regrets around, John. Too heavy. Too old for that shit. And I think you are too.” Merle takes the bottle from John’s grasp, his fist clenching in the fabric of his pants after he has nothing to hold onto anymore. Merle takes a drink and sets it on the table, letting out a satisfied sigh as he downs a hearty portion.

“We could have our very own Zone of Truthfulocity right here, without having to resort to any sort of demi-plane or parlay,” Merle says, looking up over his eyelashes at John. It was an endearing look, despite Merle’s crusty aesthetic or hideously loud shirts or his bushy hair.

John felt the alcohol settle in his stomach, turning him warm. That dwarven shit really did the job quick, he thought. John felt a spasm run over one of the fault lines in his face, tracing down from one temple to his neck, turning into a shiver racking down his spine.

“Merle, I don’t know what to say. The magnitude of what is inside of me, the burning, the taste, the flavor of my mind…” John bites his lip, looking over his shoulder and back at the photo behind him. He turns back to Merle and tentatively sets his hand, with cracks running over his palm, atop of Merle’s tree hand, blessed by Pan and yet still calloused, as if it had done all the work Merle had with his hands in its years.

“It’s alright, John. We’ve got plenty of time.” Merle turns his hand so his thumb can rub over John’s soothingly.

For a moment John imagines the hand in his catching black fire, burning ruthlessly up Merle’s arm and destroying him. Just like it had some fifty-odd times before. John closed his eyes against the image and bowed his head.

“Destroying and inverting bonds of a hundred thousand different planar systems leaves its mark, Merle. I was the one who began Ascendant’s journey. I was the mouthpiece for that monstrosity. Its advocate and creator. Each world it went to, it stamped out established bonds and inverted them back to itself. Tying all into Ascendant’s goal, into its purpose. Tying them all to me. I was and wasn’t aware of this, was completely absorbed into Ascendant and its mission. Until you.”

Merle’s thumb doesn’t stutter as it traces over the cracks running over John’s hand. Merle says nothing, just nods to show his attention as he continues listening to John’s voice.

“Because of you, I became an entity unto myself again. I once again had to speak on Ascendant’s behalf. Fanciful speeches that came naturally to me in my first life, convincing arguments and a way to talk trails around any others came back to me as we met. And even in all that you threw me off in so many ways, Merle. As each new piece of information you brought me, I became separated from the mass that overtook worlds when our parlay ended in fire.”

John swallowed thickly, his free hand worrying at the material of his suit pants. Bunching the fabric up in a tight grip and releasing it, unfamiliar nerves eating at him in a way they hadn’t since…. Since long before he could remember.

“I could remember myself as distinct from Ascendant, sometimes, especially just after parlay ended. A few moments before overtaking a plane in search of the Light, and before your crew disappeared from that dimension. I learned to recognize the signature of the seven of you. To actively send scouts to spy any of you. I wanted to gain the upper hand against you all. To be able to defeat your blasted ship once and for all, and stop being deprived of the Light that Ascendant craved.”

John bowed his head lower, unable to look Merle in the eye as he admitted the darkness inside of him. “I latched onto the souls of your friends, when they died on each plane. I inverted their bonds and they became an extension of me, of Ascendant, for a few brief moments. Before Fate tore us apart and drove Ascendant to keep searching for the Light of Creation.” John tightened his free hand into a fist, feeling his short fingernails dig painfully into a crack in his palm.

“Because of Ascendant, I have flashes of memories that aren’t mine from a million, billion lives taken and folded within it. Because I returned to an aspect of individuality, together but separate from Ascendant for a few moments at the end of each of your cycles, I purposely stole memories and moments from your friends… and you.”

There’s a heavy silence between the two of them. Merle’s thumb turned from rubbing to gentle taps. No consistent pattern. It was a habit of thinking, John could tell. Merle used to find a way to fidget during their talks and chess games in a similar way. Holding a stolen piece and tapping it with one finger as he pondered his question or next move.

If John let himself, he could purposely bring to mind aspects of the seven members of the Starblaster. Looking at the picture helped more, but he couldn’t move. John had held onto this secret for so long, and now he had given it up to Merle, awaiting a judgement he knew he would deserve in the fullest. He had stolen precious things from the people Merle loved. He’d gotten more than errant thoughts and memories of youth. He’d been intimately bonded to each member of the crew as if they were one. Maybe for no more than a couple minutes, but it was enough for John to have knowledge he did not deserve about each of them.

Knowledge he’d stolen in the same abhorrent way that Ascendant devoured planes in its search. Taken without a second thought, as if it were his right. As if his lofty goals meant more than the rights of a few travelers.

John didn’t used to care. He was singularly focused, driven, guiding and guided by Ascendant.

But now. After twelve years left to starve within Ascendant. After twelve years and a failed apocalypse and the destruction of everything John had ever built. After Merle had saved him from himself with the power of love that John had so carelessly scoffed at. After outstretched arms grounded John in a way Ascendant never could. After ending up a cracked, broken man on an unfamiliar plane, and memories that weren’t his and never would belong to him plaguing his every step. After Merle still showed kindness and… love.

John shuddered and realized as the drop hit the back of his clenched fist, he was crying. Silent tears, but each a neon color. Electric blue, brightest red, lime green, safety yellow. Colors unnaturally carved into his skin in ribbons, warping him from human into a reflection of the monster he truly was. Inky black tears splashed down as well, and he sniffed once, face still downcast.

“That’s pretty fucked up, John,” Merle says. John’s shoulders hunch him further down, unintentionally trying to shield himself from the words he knew he deserved.

“I know, I know I deserve your disgust, your hate. I know I deserve all of it Merle, please, don’t hold back,” John asks miserably. He can’t bring himself to look up. But now that they’re talking, he’d rather have all of Merle’s harshness at once rather than breaking into him over and over at unexpected moments. If he was allowed to see Merle at all after what he'd confessed. John clenched his fist tighter, and he felt little pricks of pain increase. A small warmth touched his fingertips.

Oh, he must have broken skin. A dark part of John’s mind said _good_ and a memory flashed through his head of a boy shielding a dog from a pack of faceless bullies, feeling a bruise growing on his cheek and blood welling from scrapes on his hands from trying to catch his fall. John shakes his head and the memory slips away once more.

The tree hand slips out from his grasp and John lets it go. Instead of feeling Merle’s weight shift off the couch, however, both hands grasp John’s closed fist. The tree arm gently teases his fingers open while Merle traces over the small crescent marks on John’s palm. Blood in the brightest scarlet wells and drips down the heavy lines across his palm. Merle taps each mark and whispers a small prayer of healing to Pan.

The marks close slowly, skin stitching back together as if it had never been pierced at all.

“Don’t go hurting yourself there, John. Spell slots and all that,” Merle says. John shakes his head, unable to tear his eyes away from the sight of his healed hand cradled by Merle’s thick fingers.

“What? Merle… aren’t you… aren’t you _mad_? I just told you the most horrible part of myself. Ways I tried to hurt you and your family _on purpose_.” John is shaking but he ignores it. He can’t understand why Merle just healed his inconsequential injury. A couple hours and they’d be scabbed over anyway. By the day after tomorrow, forgotten entirely. It didn’t make sense.

“Oh yeah,” Merle says, easy-going as always. “I’m pissed as hell. That is some big shit to get dropped on a guy.” Both of Merle’s thumbs, tree and flesh, are wearing new paths into the skin of John’s hand, softly tracing up each finger and back down to the wrist in unison. His voice is surprisingly as gentle as his touch as he continues. “But I mean, back then I knew you were doing all you could to destroy us. To get one step ahead of us. I’m surprised at the form it took, and a bit mad at myself if I helped cause it. But I wouldn’t change choosing to go to parlay with you, ever. It took years, but it helped you remember the human side of you. It helped us defeat the Hunger once and for all. And it let me have five minutes of peace away from the rest of the wackos on that ship, to tell you the truth.” Merle let out a small laugh, nudging John with one knee.

John looks up, finally, snot dripping from his nose, tear tracks clear down his faulted face, unable to process the words or kindness Merle continued showing him.

“But, but—“

“I never was one for wrath or regrets, John. You know that. I have my fair share of issues. Shit I’ve done that I shouldn’t have. Things I wish had gone different. But what’s the use in asking for a do-over? What’s the use in thinking about everything that went wrong? Why not let some things go, and live in the present. Make amends, mend bridges where you can. But not get dragged down by all of your mistakes and wrongdoings in the past. I don’t think anyone is truly unreachable unless they decide to be.”

John closes his eyes against the understanding Merle is trying to project to him. He might never understand.

“Merle, you don’t get it,” John says, even as he leaves his hand between Merle’s to be held. “When I connected myself to your family members, I made them a part of _me_ , of _us, Ascendant_. For the brief moments I was taking in flashes of their essence, they were a part of the destruction happening around me. We lifted our hands and overtook lesser beings together. It was my body and Lup’s fire, or Taako’s casting, or Magnus’s punches. It was the two of us, just for a moment, separate from Ascendant but still of it, raining darkness upon each plane we came upon in search of the Light and the hopes of destroying any opposition to gaining it and the summary of knowledge that dimension held because of its presence there.”

Merle shook his head, lifting his flesh hand up to John’s chin, tilting it back so they were looking eye to eye.

“John, you might be one of the few who can imagine the number the seven of us did on some worlds. What we did to this one, because of what we tried to do to stop the Hunger for good. Over 7 million on this plane perished directly because of our actions and creations, John. We divided the Light of Creation in an effort to diffuse its essence, and it worked. And in the midst of that, we stayed on our ship and watched as the world tore itself apart.”

Merle’s eye took on a far-away look, staring into some memory John didn’t share. But he could vividly imagine the scenario Merle was laying out. It was familiar, the tearing apart of worlds, to John.

“There is not a one of us, John, who is innocent in causing harm to innocent lives. Over our century of travel and escapes, we all made hard choices. We made choices the best we could in the worst situations. And sometimes, there was no winning with the options we had. I mean, shit, John, we nearly killed an entire civilization just to keep their strength from adding to yours. That’s some messed up shit, John!” Merle exclaimed.

“Yes, it is,” John agreed quietly.

“The both of us,” Merle gestures between the two of them, “are some messed up old men. And I’m okay with that.”

John blinks rapidly, the tears drying and his face itching where they’d run. “What?”

“I’m okay with us. That you, and me, and Davenport and Lucretia and Magnus, Barry, Taako, and Lup are fucking messed up. That the eight of us have undergone some real shit in our times. That you have directly caused a lot of it. That we have caused some of our own issues. I know where I stand, John. And I’m fine with it. I’m not choosing to ignore it, or, or pretend it never happened. It’s not static when I think about it,” Merle says with a grim smile. “But I’m learning to live with how all these years have changed me, and changed us. And how to change the world for the better, now that we’re on the other side of it all.”

“I don’t think I can see it like that, Merle. I feel overwhelmed with guilt and shame and fear too much to be so, so free-balling as you are.”

“Well, like I said, Johnny boy. We have time. We have time to talk, if you want,” Merle says, walking his fingers up from John’s chin to the back of his neck. His short fingers twine with the hair on the back of John’s neck, scratching lightly. It sends a warm tingle up through his head as Merle refocuses on John’s eyes.

John doesn’t smile. The moment is still too tense, the movement still too rusty for him to remember how.

“If ya want,” Merle breathes, gathering his knees under him and sitting propped up higher, more level with John, “I could try and kiss it better?” Merle offers. John’s breath catches in his throat. He remembers the teasing from earlier. But Merle has a serious look in his eye. A smile that yells his sincerity and affection for, of all people, John.

“I don’t think a single kiss could make all this go away, Merle,” John murmurs back, running his tongue over his suddenly dry lips.

“A place to start, then?” Merle asks. “If you want.”

John rubs his thumb over the healed marks on his palm. He leans in, hesitant. And then he catches himself, leaning away. He pulls the hand Merle has cradling the back of his neck and takes it between both of his own. He leans down and kisses the top of Merle’s hand, like a gentleman in greeting.

“Barry joined the IPR because he needed to distract himself from the grief of his parent’s deaths. He threw himself so deep into research that by the time the institute added the E to its name, he was an expert in several of the fields the mission needed, minimizing the positions needed from three separate people to one. He was the reason Taako and Lup qualified alongside him. He was able to carve enough space as one man in multiple disciplines that they accepted the fields Taako and Lup were experts in. Barry sometimes wondered if the death of his loved ones was the cost of finding Lup and Taako.”

John glanced up to Merle’s eyes before repeating the motion over Merle’s knuckles. Tenderly John held Merle’s hand, allowing him to pull away if he so wished.

“Sometimes I can feel my stomach grow heavy with jell-o and I can feel myself dying in the manner Lup did on the jell-o world. It is a horrible way to go, Merle. And I share that memory, as well as her last thoughts before her body shut down.”

John reached forward and tucked a stray piece of hair behind Merle’s ear. A part of his bun was always coming undone, it seemed, no matter where he went. John made sure he held eye contact with Merle as he continued.

“Six of you died at once, in a cycle,” he started, tracing a splotch of dirt on Merle’s arm by touch alone. “The seventh of you, Lucretia, when she next died her thoughts were of the times she was alone. Her mind was filled with terror and in her memories I saw her left alone as a child. A mother often working. Providing but never present. So young to be alone. So young to lose everything, over and over again. She still feels alone.”

John didn’t pause to try and drop a kiss this time either. But his grip did tighten on Merle’s hand, and he felt Merle send a pulse back.

“Davenport had a family of over 40 in his burrowed community back on your home planet, living in the closest tunnels and homes to his own. He had three brothers and two sisters and he realized one year that he couldn’t remember the names of his siblings. Nor the order they were born. He could barely picture his father’s red hair and his mother’s nose, knowing that’s what he’d inherited from each. He buried the knowledge of your home plane until he had no home left to return to of it in his mind.”

“Magnus mercy-killed Taako one cycle and no one ever knew. It tore Magnus up to the point that he let himself be taken by Ascendant that year as his version of penance. I remember bonding to his soul and feeling the pain flare through him, like a physical brand. His emotions run so recklessly, so freely, that it even reached me, for a moment…”

John leaned so their foreheads were almost touching, still waiting for Merle to hit his limit with the truths he spoke of his closest family, the knowledge too intimate to know of another, and John just saying it aloud to him. Waiting for the reproach he deserves from Merle. Wanting all of this off his chest before Merle tries to offer a kiss to make it better again.

“Taako really fucking hates key-lime gogurt. But more than that he hated the other five members of the crew for so long. Too long. He didn’t know how to open his heart enough to care for or trust anyone other than Lup or himself and he had a feeling in the back of his mind despite everything that it was a mistake to widen his circle to include all of you. Even near the end of your cycles. It was faint, but the sentiment was still hidden within him.”

John takes a deep breath, eyes searching Merle for a hint to how his confessions made him feel.

“Does it hurt you that I know all this, Merle?” he asks quietly.

“Would it make you feel better if I told you to do three “Hail Mary’s,” John?” Merle asks in return, a smile absent from his voice.

John looked away.

“And what do you know about me, John?”

“You worked endlessly, tirelessly, _unfruitfully_ , to befriend a monster, and was destroyed for all your efforts and kindnesses. Because some natures can never be changed. Some battles never had a chance of being won. Merle, you refused to believe in lost causes, despite living one for a hundred years, burying any disappointment beneath shallow exterior, temporary pursuits.”

There is a long silence where neither speaks or looks at the other. But they do not break apart.

“Well,” Merle finally breaks the silence with his low grumble. “You certainly have me pegged. And we haven’t even lost the pants, yet.”

John is too distracted by the unexpected joke to laugh, but Merle grins around his bushy beard and waggles his eyebrows at him.

“C’mon John, it’s okay to laugh. That one was pretty good, right?”

“ _Merle_ ,” John says in a large, disbelieving sigh. And then he laughs. A little choked, at first, but as he lets his body relax his shoulders shake with it, laughter bubbling from deep within his chest and pouring out into the room around them. Merle joins him, and they laugh long and loud in the middle of Merle’s beach house by the cove. If one of them looked out the window, they would be able to see the ocean waves crashing lightly against the shore.

And in the middle of his laughter, John was surprised to feel tears falling again. But even more surprised when he felt Merle lift a finger to wipe them away, and his other hand guide John’s chin down and into a soft kiss.

John blinked in surprise, tilting his head to one side as he looked over Merle. The dwarf looked visibly anxious for rejection. Underneath layers of bluster and showy jokes and toughness, Merle was insecure about his place in the world. Just like everyone else.

John felt a flash of passion rush through his heart, and he waited for the accompanying memory that was not his to tag along with it. But as the moment stretched, the passion stayed. And no unbidden memory surfaced. His chest felt full, but not choking him. He—he—

“Merle, I’m not sure a kiss can make all of this better,” John says gently. For a moment Merle’s eyes turn down to the floor. This time John is the one to reach forward and tilt his chin back up. “But it’s as good a place to start as any.”

Merle’s head jerked back up, surprise splashed across his face. John leaned in and pressed a kiss to Merle’s forehead.

“I’m not okay with myself, Merle. I’m far too messed up by everything I’ve done. But, if you’ll have me, and extend one more kindness to this monster, I’m willing to try and learn to be better. To let my nature change."

“We all have a monstrous side to us, John. Don’t go thinking you’re special just because you caused several apocalypses.” Merle squeezed his hand to let him know he was joking. John tried not to let the guilt win as the dominant emotion on his face.

“You’re welcome here as long as you want to be here with me, John.”

_For as long as I can_ , John thought, feeling a new feeling beginning to bud and spread throughout his chest. A feeling he hadn’t felt… ever. It took him a moment to put his finger on it.

Despite all the evil he’d done, all the people he’d harmed, all the things he couldn’t take back. Maybe he could learn to do better with the time he has left. Become a better man. A man worthy of being loved by Merle, one day.

John felt hope low in his gut as they sat on the couch, an unspoken zone of truth and a bottle of some strong dwarven liquor helping the conversation along as two, broken old men spoke and tried to heal. Together.

**Author's Note:**

> I had the outline of an idea on a napkin I found in my writing pile of paper notes and I found the first like three paragraphs of this fic. And then the rest of it just happened, and I wasn't expecting the places it turned to any more than the rest of you, perhaps haha. But I hope you enjoyed reading it!!
> 
> Thanks for stopping by :D As always, hmu if I missed a tag, and comments are super duper appreciated 
> 
> Later skaters <3
> 
> Edit: seriously how the heck is jello? jell-o? Jell-O? spelled? Word wouldn't answer me and everything had a squiggly red line. lol


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